Twitter has deleted 32,242 accounts after discovering three major state-sponsored propaganda efforts. In a blog post earlier today (June 12), the social media giant confirmed that it had "archived" thousands of accounts associated with the Chinese, Russian, and Turkish governments.
According to Twitter, these accounts were suspended for various violations of the platform operations policy: "All accounts and content associated with these operations have been permanently removed from the service.
The blog post continues: "Additionally, we have shared relevant data from this disclosure with two key research partners: the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the Stanford Internet Observatory.
The largest of these networks is based in China, where Twitter discovered and subsequently deleted 23,750 accounts at the "core" of this network. According to Twitter, these accounts were tweeting "in Chinese," spreading positive narratives about the Chinese Communist Party and promoting deceptive stories about the political situation in Hong Kong.
Twitter also archived 1,152 accounts found to be promoting the pro-Putin United Russia party and launching attacks on Russian political dissidents.
"The network of accounts associated with this media operation were suspended for violating our platform operation policy and specifically for cross-posting and amplifying content in an unserious and coordinated manner for political purposes," Twitter explained.
Finally, 7,340 accounts promoting Turkish government positions were removed for violating the social network's operating rules: "This network of accounts, detected in early 2020, primarily targeted audiences in Turkey and engaged in coordinated and unauthorized activities.
"Based on analysis of the network's technical indicators and account behavior, the collection of fake and compromised accounts was used to amplify political narratives in favor of the AK Party and showed strong support for President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan."
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